These days the Lutsk authorities have raised the alarm: payments for housing and communal services have sharply declined. The municipality believes that this situation is most likely caused by the government's promise of mutual offsetting of debts for deposits in the USSR Savings Bank and for housing and communal services. \n"This is so far only an intention, without any schemes," Lutsk mayor Kryvytskyi assures the people of Lutsk. – "But the city must pay for energy carriers already today. \nSo far, the situation with payments is not critical, but if residents continue to delay payments in anticipation of ephemeral promises, problems will not be long in coming. In addition, after the elections, energy generating companies will very quickly shed their loyalty toward non-payers and will begin actively recovering what they have not received. The authorities are especially concerned about the state of payments for heating. If in September people paid 115-117% of the charges, that is, in addition to current payments they were paying off debts from previous debts, then in October, after the promises to pay off the debts of the Soviet Savings Bank, payments fell to...44%. \n"Not all people know that debts for communal services in the government's well-known draft law are fixed as of July 1, 2004, so not paying for services in September or October is to one's own detriment," said the mayor's press secretary Snizhana Shevchuk. And the municipality also fears that the introduction of such an innovation will lead to the bankruptcy of the communal sector and its subsequent privatization. Problems are added by the fact that Lutsk suffers from receiving state subventions in the form of mutual offsets for the payment of taxes by communal enterprises. Therefore, heating companies and housing offices are catastrophically short of cash. Because of this, wage arrears have increased in the city. \n